Monday, September 28, 2015

How To Be Popeular

What is it about the Pope? This Pope in particular? Maybe it's because he rides around in a Fiat. Or maybe it's that whole Global Warming thing. And poverty. And immigration. In a world where our pop stars are aging or pubescent, I think it's nice to have a real and true Pope Star. He's on the cover of Rolling Stone, after all. And why shouldn't he be? He's brought the Catholic Church, kicking and screaming, into the nineteenth century.
Okay. That may not be exactly fair. Pope Francis is moving and shaking things in his corner of the spiritual plane. That makes some people unhappy. Less than half of the United States Supreme Court attended Francis' address to the joint session of Congress. Maybe they didn't get the engraved message or see the white puff of smoke coming from the Capitol Dome. Three of the five who skipped the papal address are themselves Catholic. Maybe they were jealous of the robes. The other two are Jewish, so maybe it was a religious tolerance thing after all.
Or maybe it's all about these wacky ideas Pope Francis has about saving the planet so that there will be both a heaven and an earth. He wrote an encyclical about "The Care of Our Common Home." If you don't have the stomach for all that Latin and metaphor, he's talking about saving the world for future generations. And get this: He even suggested that consumers boycott certain products to send a message to big business. Don't believe me? Go ahead and read the thing. I'll wait here.
Add this to all the other ways Francis has made the Catholic Church an easier club to join and stick with as you grow older and start to realize that all those hard and fast rules might not be as fast and hard as once imagined. You could even get divorced.
All this moving and shaking must be a sign of some sort. It could be that finally electing a pope from the Southern Hemisphere loosened things up and we might be on the cusp of a miracle of some sort. When it comes time for canonization, I would like to offer up the resignation of John Boehner from the House of Representatives. Coincidence? Maybe. Or perhaps it was divine intervention. Now if we could just roll a boulder in front of that cave we call Donald Trump's mouth.